


The Fire Nation Army Manual for Diplomatic Relations and Bear Training

by ArsenicInYourPudding



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon-adjacent, F/F, Multi, The Diplomatic Road Trip Comedy Of A Lifetime, but so is kuei so it's fine basically, listen guys, this is a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:26:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25928107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArsenicInYourPudding/pseuds/ArsenicInYourPudding
Summary: One does not simply become a functioning adult overnight.Or, a pair of Fire Nation soldiers find King Kuei and Bosco after they go off to "learn about the world" or whatever. Honestly, leaving them to their own devices would just be cruel.
Relationships: OC/OC
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	The Fire Nation Army Manual for Diplomatic Relations and Bear Training

**Author's Note:**

> Listen. King Kuei should never have been left unsupervised. The man is like, what? in his thirties? Probably can't boil an egg without lighting a sleeve on fire. Whoever let that man go backpacking around the Earth Kingdom like a college student on a gap year is a moron. 
> 
> Kyo and Yukari are OCs designed specifically for the purpose of keeping Kuei from getting Bosco killed. Or, you know. Himself.

Admittedly, the bear was a surprise. 

Honestly, the hat registered before the bear wearing it did - it was small, made of tattered red fabric and tied with a threadbare ribbon around the bear’s chin. Yukari blinked at it. The bear blinked back. 

Behind her, the crunch of gravel under boots drew her head slightly to the left, splitting her attention between the bear and her companion coming up behind her. “Kyo,” Yukari said softly. 

“Absolutely not,” Kyo said, without looking up from her map. 

The bear made a sound somewhere between confusion and offense, a soft, grumbling whuff. Kyo looked up, and began folding her map with meticulous fingers. “ _ No _ .” 

“ _ Kyo _ ,” Yukari said again, her tone slipping into  _ wheedling _ . “Look at him.” 

“Don’t misgender the bear,” Kyo said flatly. 

Yukari crossed her arms. Kyo tucked the map into her pack. The bear sat quietly on its haunches and waited, its beady eyes oddly curious. After several moments of silent debate, Kyo exhaled, a knife slicing through paper. “I am  _ not  _ dealing with circus folk again.” 

Rolling her eyes, Yukari turned back to the bear. “It wasn’t that bad, you’re just a drama queen,” she said, approaching the bear with gentle steps. “Hi, baby,” she said, her tone soft. “Where’s your people, huh? Did you get lost?” 

Kyo remained rooted to the spot, looking for all the world like she was stubbornly refusing to engage in such childish behavior. Only her commanding officer -  _ ex-commanding officer _ , she reminded herself again - would have seen the subtle change in her stance, the way she tucked her fingers into her pack in just the right way to fling it clear if she had to go on the offensive. She watched Yukari with a judgement borne of wariness, and pointedly didn’t say anything when the bear leaned forward and  _ sniffed  _ her. 

Yukari, for her part, giggled, her face splitting with joy as she brought both hands up to the sides of the bear’s face. “Aww, you’re just a big  _ floof _ , huh,” she cooed, and her voice did that  _ squishy _ thing it did when she was purposely trying to embarrass new recruits in front of their peers. “Yes, you  _ are _ , you’re just a big floof, not scary at all,  _ huh _ .” 

A branch cracked in the trees along the road. Kyo would’ve stiffened, if she wasn’t already rigid at military angles - her feet shifted against the road, her eyes scanning the trees around them. The snap wasn’t quiet, wasn’t a mistake or a warning or a threat. It was completely unintentional, followed by a rustling and a few mumbled not-curses that would’ve been comical, if Kyo had a sense of humor about these things. After a long pause, which Yukari appeared to be completely ignoring even if Kyo saw her shift just slightly in the same direction, a man in peasant’s clothing stumbled out of the underbrush, his pants caught in a juneberry thicket’s clinging thorns. A small pair of spectacles were hanging precariously close to the end of his nose, and he was soaked in uneven patches like he’d been splashed by something large. “No good, Bosco, I’m afraid,” he said as he tried to delicately remove his already torn clothing from the bush’s clutches. He turned, and stilled upon finding the pair of women standing next to the bear. His pants were still held hostage by the undergrowth. “Oh. Goodness.” 

Yukari, undaunted by the man’s appearance, gave the fur on either side of the bear’s face a playful squish. “Is your name Bosco,” she asked the bear, her voice still gooey with delight. “You look like such a  _ good  _ Bosco!” 

Kyo rolled her eyes, and dropped her pack to the ground. “Don’t move.” 

\--

Kuei watched the Fire Nation soldier throw their gear aside and advance toward him. “Don’t move,” they told him sharply. Frozen with fear, Kuei thought that he couldn’t have moved, even if he wanted to. The soldier stepped off the road, boots crushing the lovely wildflowers, and reached for him when they got close. 

Kuei winced, and belatedly hoped that he hadn’t made that whimpering sound out loud. 

The soldier grabbed for him, but before Kuei could stumble backward, the hand reaching for him was closing around the wet fabric of his trousers and jerking it away from the bush. Grabbing his arm, the soldier pulled him out of the thickest part of the foliage and up onto the road. They gave a little downward jerk on his arms, as though planting his feet into the ground, and stepped back. Kuei watched, mystified, as the soldier hoisted their gear without even  _ looking  _ at him. 

“Lets go,” they said to their companion, and Kuei realized with a little blink that the soldier was a woman. So was the other soldier, who still had her hands on Bosco’s face. The sight of it caused a stab of panic in Kuei’s gut, and he drew himself up, hoping he looked more imposing than he felt. 

“Now  _ see here _ ,” he said, hoping for  _ righteous anger _ and barely managing  _ getting ripped off at the fish stand in the market _ . The soldiers turned to him, the first irritated and the second curious. “You-- You unhand my bear  _ right this instant _ , or I’ll-- I’ll just--” 

The first soldier snorted, and gathered a fistful of the other soldier’s tunic at the shoulder. She gave it a little tug, moving her companion around Bosco. “Right away, your majesty,” the soldier muttered derisively, and Kuei almost fainted from panic. Did the Fire Nation army know who he was? Had bulletins been circulated, identifying him for capture? Were--

The soldiers walked around Bosco, the second giving him a friendly pat on his flank as she moved past. “Bye, Bosco,” she said cheerfully, adjusting her own pack and following the other soldier down the road. Neither so much as looked back at Kuei and Bosco. 

Bosco grumbled and pushed his nose toward Kuei’s pockets, long since stretched out for having to carry their meager supplies without a bag. Now they were well emptied, except for a few copper coins that rattled when Bosco nosed at him. Kuei scratched behind Bosco’s ear absently. “I’m sorry, Bosco, but I wasn’t able to catch any fish,” he said regretfully. In truth, he hadn’t the first idea  _ how _ \- the thought had occurred to him that perhaps he could literally  _ catch  _ a fish in his hands, perhaps by building some kind of trap-like pool in the river with stones. But the stones refused to stay balanced, and the fish swam away almost like they could hear him coming, rushing downward with the current, and all Kuei got for his trouble were several sore fingers and toes and some very wet clothing. 

Bosco looked up at him, indignant. “I’m  _ sorry _ ,” Kuei said again, folding his arms. “I’d like to see  _ you  _ do any better here.” 

After a slight pause, Bosco turned and trundled down the road after the soldiers. “Bosco,” Kuei called after him, alarmed. “Bosco,  _ stop _ \--” 

Kuei could only watch in horror as Bosco caught up to the soldier who had been restraining the bear earlier, nuzzling at her pack. The soldiers turned, and the second soldier laughed. Kuei hurried to catch up to him. All of his years of etiquette training made moving quickly feel  _ wrong _ , unregal and ungainly. Still, he managed to catch up to his bear just in time to see the soldier take off her pack. 

“Are you hungry, baby,” she cooed. She dug into her gear, pulling out what Kuei could only assume were field rations of some kind. 

The other soldier scowled. “Really?” 

“Yes,  _ really _ , can’t you see he’s hungry?” 

“ _ It _ is a con artist, and the nearest town is another day out.” 

The soldier held the rations out in her palm, letting Bosco sniff them. “We can spare a few.” 

“Not enough to satisfy a  _ bear _ .” 

Kuei slowed to a stop next to Bosco, trying to disguise his heavy breathing. “We don’t need to  _ beg _ ,” he said indignantly. “We are perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves.” 

The soldier who wasn’t offering Bosco traitor-treats gave Kuei a frankly disrespectful over, arms crossed. “Right.” 

Her companion grinned as Bosco licked the rations out of her palm. “That’s a good bear,” she said, squishing Bosco’s face in her hands. “Just a hungry boy, huh.” 

The first soldier glanced down at her, and then rolled her eyes again. “Can’t feed the bear without feeding the person, Yu.” 

“Oh! Sure, here,” the soldier, apparently named Yu, said, reaching into her pack again. She came back with some more rations - rice cakes baked in seaweed wrappers, some dried fruits and lychee nuts - and held them up to Kuei. “It’s not a lot, but it should get you to the next town, right?” 

Kuei stared down at the offered food. The thought of Fire Nation soldiers offering  _ charity  _ to the King of Ba Sing Se - but he wasn’t anymore, he was just a simple man with a bear he couldn’t feed and nothing to feed himself. Kuei sighed, and took the rations, dropping them into his distended pockets. “I thank you for your gracious offer,” he told them. 

The soldiers looked at each other. The first soldier glanced at the bear, and then again at Kuei, before looking back at her companion. She sighed, looking up at the tree canopy overhead. “Look, it’s going to be dark soon. Maybe you should travel with us.” 

Kuei regarded them with suspicion and not a little bit of fear. Bosco, on the other hand, nudged at the soldier’s pack again, and grumbled his agreement. 

It appeared that they would be having company, then. 


End file.
